NSG2026: Farmers, farming practices & farming tools

The theme of the 2026 Neolithic Studies Group day conference is farming - from practice to ideology - drawing on new research & discoveries.

Farmers, Farming Practices and Farming Tools

Organisers: Kenny Brophy and Rosie Bishop

An in person and hybrid online Neolithic Studies Group conference. Programme now available, see below.

Farming is often regarded as the key factor which defines a community as ‘being Neolithic’ and yet remains relatively under-researched and theorised as a practice and way of life in Britain and Ireland. This stands in contrast with some other parts of Europe where these aspects of Neolithic lifeways have received far more attention. It is now 10 years since the NSG last covered these issues in a conference in 2016 (Neolithic Food and Farming Systems and associated publication), and there have been several key methodological innovations, discoveries and metadata syntheses of primary evidence of farming undertaken in the last decade that have the potential to considerably change our understanding.

More broadly, we are also interested in contributions that explore the social nature of farming and the ontological status of ‘being a farmer’ or ‘becoming a farmer’, and in understanding the longer-term social and environmental consequences of the introduction of farming, both positive and negative. We are coming to realise that far from being indicative of a winner-takes-all positive development, the advent of farming was accompanied by a series of social and health problems, as well as causing detrimental environmental impacts. To what extent do we have evidence that these were a problem early on, and can we identify strategies that the first farmers used to mitigate against these? How did early farmers cope with climate change? Finally, to what extent have we resolved the conundrum explored so memorably in the 1980s and 1990s as to whether farming was about the economy, ideology …or both?

A series of speakers and posters will tackle the understudied area of farming in the British Neolithic, drawing on fresh research and scientific analyses, new excavation results, and ongoing research projects. These contributions come from academia and the developer-led sector, non-professionals, and early career researchers in the NSG tradition.

Programme (this is subject to change)

10am Doors open; registration, posters

1030-1040 NSG Welcome and introduction from Kenny and Seren

1040-1055 Plant gatherers, plant managers or agriculturalists? Investigating people-plant relationships in the Neolithic / Rosie Bishop

1055-1110 Small but intensive: the earliest Neolithic agriculture in Britain and Ireland Jim Innes and Peter Rowly-Conwy

1110-1125 Farming on the New Frontier: Microwear Evidence for Agricultural Practice and Daily Life in Neolithic Britain / Jake Rowland

1125-1140 Towards a more bioregional Neolithic: the evidence from Ireland / Jessica Smyth

1140-1155 Comfort break, posters

1155-1210 Stocking the Past: Isotopic and Genomic Approaches to Pastoralism in Prehistory / Rick Schulting

1210-1235 From mosaic to dense networks: Megalithism as a condition of possibility for new Atlantic farming landscapes / Andrés Teira-Brión

1235-1250 Discussion

1250-1350 Lunch, posters (Delegates to make their own arrangements, plenty of options nearby)

1350-1405 Ardmarks and what they tell us about prehistoric ploughing in Scotland / Kenny Brophy

1405-1420 Farming practices and Land use at Drumadoon and Machrie Moors prehistoric landscapes, Isle of Arran, Scotland / Nicki Whitehouse

1420-1435 What’s in a ditch? Early Neolithic cows, crops and other plants and animals from the Riding Court Farm, Datchet causewayed enclosure / John Powell, L. Higbee and Ed Treasure

1435-1450 We need to talk about pits / Richard Mortimer

1450-1510 Comfort break and posters

1510-1525 Reconstructing pig husbandry in Linearbandkeramik farming communities: an integrated isotopic and metabolomic approach /Saketh Kotamraju

1525-1540 Cows and sheep can change your view of the world: thinking through the practicalities and environmental impacts of animal husbandry in the early Neolithic / Al Oswald

1540-1555 Ruminating about Rumex: can high levels of Rumex pollen be used as a proxy for dairy farming during the Neolithic? / Yvonne Luke

1555-1610 Title tbc / Cereals topic Seren Griffiths

1610-1645 Discussion

1645 Wrap-up

17.00 END

Please note unfortunately this year we cannot offer tea and coffee to delegates.

If you have any questions or queries please email kenny.brophy@glasgow.ac.uk

Also see our website https://neolithic.org.uk/